If one is doing "labelling" of mental states, how does one know which is which? What phenomenological different distinguishes say "greed" from "generosity"?
@jayarava
That's not a practice I do, but I think I could at least tell your examples apart. Get more fine in the grading and I'd be lost.
I've had this conversation with therapists many times:
T: How are you feeling?
Andy: I have no idea.
T: Okay. But how do you feel?
And so on. If I'm not actively angry (that's the easy one) or afraid, I'm at the limits of what I can identify with any certainty. To make things worse, my brain will just pop in some unidentifiable vague emotion for no reason whatsoever. Not often, fortunately. I'm only half-joking when I say that trying to identify an emotion is usually the cause of the emotion.
Thinking about this feelings stuff just now made me realize I haven't had any actual fear for a long while, like maybe May of last year, about a month after getting a terminal diagnosis. (It's not a big deal to me now, completely used the the idea and fact). Kind of the opposite of what I would have expected, but there it is. 😉
@jayarava
Ooh, thanks for the pointer! Will have a look. Have read a fair amount on emotion as it relates to sense of self (The Ego Tunnel and various things from Dimasio have really helped).
@AndyLowry The Ego Tunnel changed my life. Literally. I finally let go of the supernatural while reading it. A huge weight lifted off me and I just knew I was free of the baleful influence of supernatural beliefs forever. I've never looked back.
Also a fan of Damasio.
@jayarava
That's interesting! I've never experienced anything that could be thought of as magical, or at least not in a typical supernatural sense, so never gave the possibility of supernatural occurrences any serious consideration. When I was briefly exposed to Sunday School, it was nakedly obvious to me that they were making that stuff up, and the fact that other kids seemed to take it seriously confused me. It was obvious that the adults didn't really believe what they were saying. They used that fakey-fakey nice-nice tone of voice, and that was all I the clue I needed. 🙄
The garden variety mystical experience I reckon most of us have had to some degree reinforces that "it's just this, nothing more" view, for me anyway, despite being astonishing at first. (Not that "this" isn't plenty. 😉 )
The section in Tunnel that talked about mind/brain representation, like where a person can be convinced they have an extra hand or that it's located somewhere it's not, amazed me. I later read of the neurologist Ramachandran's success with treating phantom limb pain through trickery with mirrors, equally amazing.
Part of my current illness is a brain tumor (left parietal), and I thus have a little first-hand experience with what lesions can do to the mind-body. Not as dramatic or unsettling as some of, say, Oliver Sacks' tales, but interesting to examine and test, for me at least. (Last radiation session is in a couple of hours, so almost done with that one.)
Apologies for the disjointed keyboardorrhea, I'll blame the steroids. Started typing and couldn't stop.
@AndyLowry It's not an easy book but How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman-Barrett changed my whole understanding of emotions.